


Jazzcat Tango

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cowboy Bebop Fusion, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Feelings, Humor, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Pining, Slow Build, Space Opera, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-10 02:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19898479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Just a couple of guys on a cruise through the stars, searching every corner of the galaxy for something they don't know how to find, only now they have a cat.





	Jazzcat Tango

The sound of the airlock decompressing is what wakes Wonwoo up. He’s never liked that sound. It’s a thin sort of hiss, like the ship is wheezing out a dying breath through its teeth. Makes him feel like he’s suffocating.

Next comes the regular noise of Soonyoung’s boots clunking down the metal grate of the staircase, quick at first and then slower, like he remembers he’s making noise at the fourth step from the bottom. Wonwoo hears him slip the shoes off, set them down by the base of the stairs, tiptoe on socks into the bunk. Somehow, the rustle of his clothes is louder than usual.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” he whispers. Wonwoo rolls over, cracks one eye open.

“Because you’re so damn loud.”

Soonyoung’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. Even in the dark, Wonwoo can make it out. Slowly, shapes melt from black to shades of gray under a surface coat of blue, and Wonwoo blinks. Something is off about the way Soonyoung is standing. His posture or his arms. Wonwoo can’t tell. He props himself up on elbows.

“Why do I have a weird feeling about you right now?”

Soonyoung chuckles, like sand slipping through the slats of the floor. “I brought you a gift.”

“A gift?”

Before he has time to conjure an idea of what the gift might be, Soonyoung rustles, and something lands on his stomach hard with a horrific _meow_. Small paws dig in around Wonwoo’s ribs as it finds its footing, and he moves his hands through empty space until they land on something.

“A cat,” Wonwoo says. He strokes down its back with his fingertips, tracing down through coarse fur to a tail that cuts off abruptly. Every notch of the spine sticks out, and it makes his stomach tighten.

“I know you like them,” Soonyoung says. There’s the sound of footsteps, then fabric moving. He must be climbing into his own bed on the other side of the room.

“Pets are expensive,” Wonwoo says, running his hands again over the cat’s thin body. It worms its way through his fingers and jumps to the floor. “And we don’t have the money to take care of it.”

“We will have the money,” Soonyoung says around a yawn.

“You’ve said that a lot of times,” Wonwoo reminds him, lowering his head back to the pillow and closing his eyes, “and we’ve still never had money.”

“Well, we’ll get it.” Another yawn. “After the next hit.”

“Sure, just like we always do.”

“Come on, have a little faith in me.” There’s a gentle tap on the floor every time the cat takes a step, a soft contrast to the usual clang of shoes stomping around. “Besides, I know you get lonely when I’m out there.”

“The hell I do.”

Soonyoung’s laughter echoes off the walls a little while, then dies midair. For a moment, it drowns out the sound of the cat’s curious walking, the hum of the ship’s idle engine. Outside, silently, the blackness of space rolls by.

A ship cruising through the galaxy is no place for a cat. Wonwoo is already sure of it after the third day he’s been with them, but he’s cement after the first week. He decides to call the cat Freddy after a few days, more due to the way it rolls off his tongue by accident than intention. It’s an easy enough name to learn, and Freddy is a sweet enough cat. Wonwoo only wishes Soonyoung hadn’t forced him to live like this.

As things are, they’re managing only in the barest sense of the word. Wonwoo doesn’t remember the last time he felt full after eating, the last time his wallet had any weight in it. He’d love if they could stop on Earth and check out one of those weird retro bars, just go all out, but he knows they haven’t got the money. And now they’ve got Freddy, so they have even less money. Always Soonyoung and his bright ideas.

Wonwoo opens the fridge and gives it a nice, long look. One onion. Half a bottle of ketchup. A broken up knob of garlic that might need to be thrown out already. Not nearly enough to scrape anything together. His stomach growls, and he presses his hand to it. Freddy slips between his legs and meows.

“I know,” Wonwoo says, nudging the cat’s paws with his toe, “but there’s nothing I can do. Not until Soonyoung bags another bounty.” He sighs. “He really does ruin everything.”

A cough comes from behind. “That’s not very nice of you to say.”

When Wonwoo turns around, he sees Soonyoung strolling down the hall toward the kitchen door, laces of his boots dragging along the metal plates of the floor. Freddy makes a small noise and weaves between Wonwoo’s legs to sprint into the hall. Soonyoung squats and pets his face, eyes crinkling over a smile. The brightness of it gives Wonwoo a headache.

“Hey, little guy,” Soonyoung says, very soft and very sweet, stroking the cat’s back as it nuzzles into his knee. He glances up at Wonwoo. “How dare you try to turn him against me.”

“You asked for it as soon as you took him prisoner.”

“Whoa,” Soonyoung scoffs, giving Freddy a final pat on the head before standing to his full height and stretching his arms to the ceiling. “The Jazzcat is way nicer than any prison I’ve ever been to.”

“Is that right?” Another low rumble rises from the pit of Wonwoo’s stomach, and his gaze hardens to a glare. “At least they feed you in prison.”

“Who says we’re not being fed?” Soonyoung asks, crossing his arms.

“Plenty of sources.” Wonwoo stretches his fingers out and starts ticking them down. “Our empty fridge. Our empty pantry. Our empty wallets. Our empty—”

A small bundle hits him square in the middle of the chest and knocks the wind out of him. Just before it falls, he raises his hands to catch it. A wallet. He stares at it for a long time, feels the leather beneath his fingertips. There are spots where it’s been so well-worn by Soonyoung’s touch that it’s almost white. He looks back up and finds Soonyoung grinning at him, more smug than usual.

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen a wallet before,” he says, jerking his chin. “Open it.”

Rolling his eyes, Wonwoo unfolds the wallet and widens its opening. A very different sight from the interior of his own wallet. It’s padded thick with bills, more than he thinks he’s ever seen in any wallet before, let alone Soonyoung’s. He fights the instinct of his jaw to hang open, tenses it up to make sure it won’t, trains his eyes back on Soonyoung.

“Where did you get this much money?” he asks. The smugness of Soonyoung’s grin strengthens tenfold.

“Where else? I worked for it.”

Wonwoo narrows his eyes. “Must have been a risky bounty,” he ventures. Soonyoung waves his hands through the air. Just slightly, his grin dampens. A change so subtle only Wonwoo could possibly catch it.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Take half. Your cut.”

While Wonwoo leafs a portion of the stack out for himself, he keeps his eyes on Soonyoung. Something is suspicious here. Usually, Wonwoo finds all the bounties for him to go after, and then he’s too lazy to do it, or he bungles the whole thing right at the last second. Wonwoo’s never heard anything about any bounty worth this much, and he’s been watching the listings like a maniac. He’s never thought that Soonyoung would start moving around behind his back, but maybe now’s the time to start suspecting. Soonyoung rocks back and forth on his heels until Wonwoo tosses his wallet back to him. His smile returns to its former smug glory.

“Can we stop on Mars?”

Wonwoo frowns. “Why?”

“I want to go somewhere nice for dinner,” Soonyoung says. “My treat.” He rests a hand on one hip and leads to the side. The bluish-pale overhead light in the hall catches him so strangely at this angle. “Besides, I did just bring home the bacon. I think I deserve one request.”

The longer they stare each other down, the worse Wonwoo’s resolve gets. It’s always like this. The little buds of pink on Soonyoung’s cheeks, the flash of his teeth in that too-wide smile. Wonwoo rolls his eyes.

“Fine. We’ll stop on Mars.”

Soonyoung chuckles, and Wonwoo stalks off down the hallway toward the cockpit. As he walks, he hears the hushed patter of feline footsteps trailing along behind him.

The air on Mars has a certain smell to it, a certain weight. No matter how long Wonwoo is away, the feeling of being here is never unfamiliar for more than half a second, wraps him up tight the second he breathes in. Soonyoung was born on Mars, he knows. One of the few things he does know about Soonyoung before they met. It’s so strange on Mars, so different from Wonwoo’s native home of Ganymede. Strangely, he always feels like he can remember Mars more clearly.

Soonyoung walks around Mars like his feet were made for it, which Wonwoo guesses they might have been. He guides them down streets bustling with greasy crowds, weaves through roads Wonwoo could never memorize even if he worked hard at it, to a little hole-in-the-wall bar with a dinky half-unlit neon sign hanging sideways over the door.

“I thought you wanted to go somewhere nice,” Wonwoo says as they near the entrance.

“This is somewhere nice.” His eyebrows lower when he sees the way Wonwoo is looking at him. “I know the owner, alright? And their food is really good.”

“Whatever you say.”

The smell inside is strange, sets Wonwoo’s nose on edge, makes the back of his neck prickle. There’s something distinctly Mars-y about it, he thinks, something that feels inexplicably exactly like the influence of Soonyoung that’s started to linger in the dusty corners of the rooms aboard the Jazzcat. He powers through it and follows Soonyoung deeper inside, right to a high table by the bar, where Soonyoung scoops himself onto a stool and throws suspicious glances toward the bartender every few minutes.

“What are you doing?” Wonwoo whispers. “Trying to start a fight?”

“Oh my god, relax.” Soonyoung turns around again in time to see the bartender he’s been making eyes at shimmy out from behind the bar and saunter over to where they sit, wide grin on his face. “I’m using my connections. For us.”

The bartender in question strides up to their high top, rests an elbow on it, leans his cheek into the palm of his hand, and looks at Soonyoung. He’s very good-looking in a way that immediately makes Wonwoo skeptical, and the over-sugary way he smiles in Soonyoung’s direction only augments it. His hair is a bizarre metallic shade, somewhere in the middle of bronze and gold, and it catches the light in just the right way that Wonwoo has to squint to look at him.

“Look what we have here,” the guy says, voice lighter on the air than Wonwoo expected. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was seeing a ghost.”

“Good to see you too, Junhui.” It’s now that Wonwoo notices how brightly Soonyoung is beaming in return. He smiles pretty often normally, but there’s a distinct difference to this one, like the saturation’s been maxed out. “How’s business been lately?”

Junhui laughs something airy that hardly reaches Wonwoo’s ears. “Don’t act like you suddenly care.” He claps his hand on Soonyoung’s shoulder. “You’re just here for some free food, aren’t you?”

“Not free,” Soonyoung says, puffing out his cheeks that way he does when he’s huffy. An expression Wonwoo definitely recognizes. “I can pay. Seriously.”

"Oh, in that case," Junhui says, drawing his hand back and stroking his chin, "I guess I'll skip the special for today."

Soonyoung frowns, and Junhui laughs, and Wonwoo watches the two of them, feeling very much like this is a scene he wasn't meant to be a part of. After a few moments, their laughter fades out, and he watches Junhui's attention turn his way, eyes splashing silver at him from beneath that strange shimmery crop of hair.

"And I see you've brought a friend," he says, certainly to Soonyoung, though his gaze stays locked on Wonwoo while he speaks. He extends his hand and waits for Wonwoo to take it. His palm is warm in a similar way to Soonyoung's; Wonwoo guesses it must be a Mars thing. "My name is Junhui."

"Wonwoo," Wonwoo says, giving a short shake and drawing his hand back to the comfort of his coat pocket. He doesn't like the way Junhui's eyes glitter at him, like they know something.

"Pleasure," Junhui says. He reaches out and slaps the side of Soonyoung's shoulder. "Anything you want is on the house for having to deal with this guy."

"Hey," Soonyoung juts in, punching Junhui not-very-softly in the abdomen. "Don't act like I'm a pain. Wonwoo loves me."

Wonwoo's breath catches on the way down, lungs squeeze a little bit, like a handful of putty clutched in the fist of a child. "Is that so?" he asks, and he pulls it off well enough that Junhui laughs out loud, high-pitched and whistling. He feels his heartbeat go back down to speed while Junhui cackles, evades the look of Soonyoung pouting at him from across the table.

"So what'll it be for you two?" Junhui asks, voice suddenly clear and professional. He throws a glance back toward the bar while he talks, whips out a notepad. "It's been nice chatting, but I think the other patrons are getting a little antsy."

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. "I thought you'd never ask," he says, then rattles of a list of dishes so quickly Wonwoo can't recall the name of a single one. Junhui writes at the speed of light, offers one more smile, then backs away on long legs to resume post behind the bar, chatting up the line of other men sitting there to drink. Wonwoo looks at their backs, wonders if some of them might be criminals themselves. Junhui seems like the type of person who might not care that there's a bounty sitting right under his nose.

"So you know that guy," Wonwoo says, halfway a question even though the answer is obvious. Soonyoung nods while he folds and unfolds the corner of the drink menu.

"We go back a while," he says. Nothing else after. There's a certain mistiness clinging to the rings of his irises that Wonwoo's seen a time or two before and has never been able to understood.

He wants to ask how they know each other, but it feels too nosy, even if Soonyoung lives with him. Even if he repairs Soonyoung's ship when it breaks down, even if they cook and eat together, bunk in the same room, chat idly in the common area on long trips through the galaxy. It's been years now since Wonwoo picked Soonyoung up adrift just shy of Mercury, and in some ways it's been only minutes. There are a million questions he's itching to ask, and every single one is too much.

When he first found Soonyoung, floating through the free space and totally out of fuel, he'd intended to give him a lift to the closest interstellar station and drop him off. He was just a no-good excuse for a bounty hunter struggling to hang onto life, fingers curled in a death grip on the steering handles of his dinged-up ship Tigerclaw. He still is that, Wonwoo guesses, but now he's wormed his way into the cracks in the tiles of the Jazzcat, right alongside the caulk. Wonwoo can't remember why he ended up not dumping him at that station and moving on. Maybe life would've been a little easier. Freddy's certainly might have been.

A small, angry-looking waiter brings them waters after a few minutes. He doesn't say anything, just sets them down and departs, and it's this that makes Wonwoo notice how strangely quiet it is in here. There's music playing, but it's so muted that Wonwoo can't make out any of the lyrics even though he tries to listen to it. Other guests at other tables are talking, but their conversations sound so far away, so distorted, like they're all hiding behind thick stage curtains murmuring so he won't be able to catch a word. Soonyoung across from him won't say anything, and Wonwoo's tongue freezes up the moment he thinks about starting a conversation himself. He's sure Soonyoung will talk readily enough if he tries, but everything on his mind is a question, and he's afraid Soonyoung won't want to answer a single one.

"This is an interesting place," he manages after a while.

Soonyoung looks up absently from the crease he's wearing into the corner of that page of the drink menu, edge still pinched firmly between his thumb and forefinger. "You think so?" The angry waiter passes by them again and gives him a stern look from the side, but still doesn't say anything. "It's very like Junhui, I think."

"He seems nice."

"He is."

Silence again, even worse now, even more like hands pressing into Wonwoo's chest and holding him down. On the surface, Soonyoung seems so talky, but Wonwoo has noticed that he never really says anything, never really starts on a topic himself. The only two things that exist in conversations with Soonyoung are right here and right now. They've never talked about where or when or why or anything Wonwoo thinks is important. Even something like how long he plans on staying with Wonwoo on the Jazzcat. Wonwoo wonders if they'll ever talk about it, or if someday Soonyoung will disappear while he's sleeping and leave the upper deck garage empty without a word. A shiver runs over his skin. Maybe it's better not to think about it at all.

Before he can find the stones to try talking again, their server arrives with two large trays full of food balanced delicately on his arms. Junhui sprints over from behind the bar to assist him in setting it down on the table, and by the time it's all been set down, Wonwoo can hardly find a spot to set his glass among the array of dishes.

"Enjoy your meal," Junhui says with a winning smile, giving his scowling companion a helpful pat on the back.

"Yeah," the guy says, not convinced. "Enjoy it." And then they are gone, and it's just Wonwoo and Soonyoung and enough food for a year.

Soonyoung closes his eyes and breathes in the smell, face scrunching into a smile. "I can't wait to eat this," he whispers. His eyes open only slightly, just enough for him to peek at Wonwoo. "Doesn't it look good?"

"Yeah," Wonwoo agrees, though he isn't sure where to look, "it looks great." It definitely does smell good, which is enough to sell him on it. He lifts a fork gingerly and roves it around in the air, trying to map a plan of attack. "Well, let's dig in, I guess."

Where Wonwoo flounders trying to decide what to eat first, Soonyoung executes a sophisticated strategy, far better conceived than any he's ever engineered to apprehend a target. He targets each item with precision Wonwoo never would have thought he had, scoops up bites so quickly Wonwoo fears he won't manage to taste anything before Soonyoung's gobbled it all up. Eventually, he finds an opening and strikes, and the rhythm gets into him after that.

It's undeniably good. Wonwoo will admit that. It's much better than his own cooking, which has been even worse than it could be due to their inability to afford decent ingredients, and it might even be in the top tier of restaurants he's eaten at, were he to sit down and try ranking them. But there's something strange about the taste, too, strange like the way Junhui's hair reflects the light, strange like the way everything in the restaurant is buried under that peculiar hush. It tastes like something he's eaten before, in a past life maybe, or maybe like something he's only ever smelled. He can't explain it.

By the time they’re done eating, Wonwoo has pushed that strange little feeling out of his present consciousness, but in the post-food lull, it starts coming back to him. He watches Soonyoung call Junhui over and chat with him, slide him what seems like not nearly enough to cover their meal, gather his coat, and all the while, Wonwoo feels like he’s not really watching, like he’s standing somewhere outside of his body, watching himself watching Soonyoung. He can feel the way his eyes must look, and he can’t do anything to stop them.

“There’s another place I wanna go,” Soonyoung says as they return to the street outside and set off walking down it. Already, Wonwoo’s forgotten the look of the road they came in off. He’s completely at Soonyoung’s will.

“Is it a grocery store?” he ventures, though he knows it never would be. Soonyoung scoffs.

“Don’t be so boring,” he says.

“We need to get cat food,” Wonwoo reminds him. “For Freddy. And other things, for us.”

“We can get those later.” Soonyoung turns abruptly down a narrow side street, pace picking up with each step. “There’s somewhere I want to go first.”

Without saying anything else, he keeps up his brisk speed and leaves Wonwoo to follow along blindly, evening light dimming to blackness around them to make way for the streetlamps to shine. Nights on Mars are cold, much colder than he’s ever known it to get on the Jazzcat. It creeps into his skin, past the folds of the jacket he’s wearing, a way the cold has never gotten to him before. As they wander through the streets, it occurs to Wonwoo that he’s never spent this much time on Mars at once without actively working toward something. The thought makes his feet feel weird.

The place Soonyoung takes them is another bar, crammed into a tight spot between a larger club and a ramshackle convenience store. This place is markedly more run-down than Junhui’s in a way Wonwoo has trouble placing. Something about the lighting makes all the colors inside look desaturated, something about the speakers makes the music sound grainy. All the stools seem to lean too heavily on one leg. They creak when Soonyoung and Wonwoo sit down in them.

“You know the owner of this place, too?” Wonwoo asks. A thin veil of cigarette smoke stains the air between them, washes some of the expression out of Soonyoung’s face. He slides his eyes past Wonwoo, to the man tending the bar behind him.

“No,” he says, holding a cigarette to his lips and lighting it. Smoke curls around him like caressing hands. “I just used to come to this place sometimes. When I was younger.”

When he was younger. Just the sound of that last word sets Wonwoo’s mind tumbling. Soonyoung doesn’t mention the days when he was younger, barely found the time to mention that he’s from Mars after more than a year of cohabiting Wonwoo’s ship. As far as Wonwoo knows, he’s not even from Mars, was born in the dead space on the outskirts of Mercury already fully-grown and piloting a ship. Maybe the fact that Soonyoung brought it up means Wonwoo is allowed to ask. Maybe.

“A couple beers,” Soonyoung says, past Wonwoo, to the hunched man behind the bar, and the smoke around them thickens. “Whatever’s on tap.” Seconds later, two frosted glasses overflowing with froth are in front of them. Soonyoung lifts his and guzzles half of it in an instant, then looks to Wonwoo with a half-dim smile. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, nudging Wonwoo’s beer closer with his elbow. “Drink up.”

Wonwoo stares at him a moment before exhaling and reaching for the glass. “Alright.” He lifts the rim to his lips and takes a careful sip. Beneath the foam, it tastes like Mars.

Around three or four months had passed with Soonyoung aboard the Jazzcat when Wonwoo began to realize he was in trouble. He’d already gotten used to finding Soonyoung’s socks in places they weren’t supposed to be and dropping them in a pile at the foot of Soonyoung’s bed, which should have been an early sign, but it only hit him as he strolled through the halls one night in a fit of insomnia. Soonyoung, he’d learned, was also prone to occasional sleeplessness, and on that night, he’d been up taking a shower.

Wonwoo found this out by seeing first a thin cloud of steam spilling into the hall, then Soonyoung stepping out naked alongside it. He had a small towel coiled around his hips, but it wasn’t quite enough fabric to hide his thighs or his chest, and it certainly wasn’t enough to stop him from dripping a trail down the tiles.

“Evening,” he said as he walked by, footsteps noisy on the floor. “I thought you’d be asleep.” Then he was past Wonwoo, rounding the corner at the end of the hall. Wonwoo waited a second too long, then turned just in time to see the last flash of his back before it disappeared on the other side of the wall. In the pits of his lungs, he felt a disappointed sort of tightness. He wound up not going to sleep at all.

Now, Wonwoo is remembering that time as he shoulders Soonyoung’s half-limp body up the ship’s loading ramp, trying to keep his shoes from scraping too much on the grates. He knew the second Soonyoung started drinking that it would turn out like this, that they wouldn’t make it to a grocery store. Good thing he snuck a few handfuls of the sides from dinner in his pockets for Freddy, though they’re surely frozen by now.

“I can walk,” Soonyoung groans against Wonwoo’s neck. “I’m sober.”

“If you can walk, then do it,” Wonwoo says. He waits for Soonyoung to act like he might try to, but of course that doesn’t happen. Wonwoo huffs as he scans the entry door open, and Soonyoung slumps against him a little heavier. “Pain in my ass. I should kick you off.”

“Ah,” Soonyoung grunts, “but I paid for dinner. I’m the money-earner. You can’t.”

“As if I couldn’t go earn it myself,” Wonwoo snorts. His footsteps echo off the metal floors while he walks, too loud for the darkness. “I used to bounty hunt. I can do it just fine.”

“Oh, yeah—” Soonyoung’s voice cuts off when he sees a slow-moving shadow in the distance, walking around the corner of the couch in the main room. “Freddy!” he croons. “There’s my little Freddy.”

Finding sudden willpower, he lifts himself from Wonwoo’s side and stumbles sideways toward the cat, flopping on the couch once he reaches it. He lies on his back and groans, arm swishing around on the ground in search of Freddy, who’s already pranced off to circle around Wonwoo’s still-walking feet. He must smell the food.

“Can you believe it, Freddy?” Soonyoung says, each breath heaving. “Wonwoo wants to kick me off.” He hums some tune, something they must have heard at the bar earlier. Wonwoo can’t remember. “But I have nowhere to go.”

Wonwoo takes a seat on the adjacent chair, reclining to look Soonyoung over. His eyes glaze over while he stares up at the ceiling, arms limp at his sides, waiting for Freddy to leap into them. Meanwhile, Wonwoo unfolds a napkin from his pocket and feeds Freddy the morsels stashed inside. He eats quietly and quickly, licking at Wonwoo’s knuckles when he’s done, eyes begging for more. When he doesn’t get anything else, Freddy mews softly, weaves around Wonwoo’s legs, then struts to Soonyoung and leaps onto his stomach.

“Ah, Freddy,” Soonyoung says, stroking his back with clumsy hands. “You’re so cute. I knew Wonwoo would like you.” Wonwoo’s eyelids flutter. It’s strange to hear Soonyoung talk about him like he isn’t here. “He pretends not to like anything, but I knew. I can tell things about him.” What exactly, Wonwoo wonders. An explosion is building pressure behind his sternum.

“But if he kicks me out,” Soonyoung continues, hands still trailing sluggishly down Freddy’s spine, “I don’t know. There’s nowhere to go.” He blows out a noisy breath that turns into a yawn halfway through. “I guess I can just do what I did before. I guess.”

“Which is?” Wonwoo asks. The fragile quiet of his own voice surprises him, and he coughs. Soonyoung’s shoulders tense, then relax.

“Wonwoo?” he says, sleepy. “I didn’t know you were in here. I thought you—I thought you went to bed.”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” he sighs, abandoning petting Freddy to lie motionless again. Freddy rubs his face against Soonyoung’s chin. “Not interesting.” His fingers tap on the upholstery while he lies there. “Boring. Boooring. And I’m tired.”

Wonwoo breathes out. From this angle, he can’t quite see Soonyoung’s mouth moving when he speaks. “Go to bed, then,” he says. He wishes he didn’t have to say it, wishes Soonyoung would’ve said a little more. If only.

“You go,” Soonyoung huffs, shoulders bunching closer on the cushions. “Don’t feel like moving.” The way he breathes out next gives Wonwoo the distinct sensation he’s already closed his eyes. “I’m gonna sleep here.”

“That’s bad for your back,” Wonwoo says. Soonyoung snorts.

“It’s great for my back,” he says. “Go sleep. I’m sleeping.”

“Suit yourself,” Wonwoo says, grunting as he rises to his feet.

Freddy curls into a ball on the center of Soonyoung’s chest, definitely too heavy to sleep there all night, and Wonwoo can only hope he’ll decide to abandon Soonyoung soon to come stretch across the foot of his own bed. As Wonwoo pads down the hall toward the bedroom, Freddy keeps watch over him, eyes shining like small copper plates from the depth of the blackness after he’s cut the lights. Before he opens the door, he hears some indistinct mumbling from behind him and pauses.

“I’m alone,” comes Soonyoung’s voice, muffled by darkness and distance and sleep. He is so much quieter than usual, so much clearer than Wonwoo has ever heard him. “I’d be all alone. I was alone for so long.” Wonwoo stands still a while, wondering which way to go, then silently pushes the bedroom door open.

Just seconds after he takes the step over the threshold into the bedroom, he hears out the soft sound of cat feet coming closer down the hall.

There’s nothing Wonwoo can think of to get the sound of Soonyoung’s fragile voice out of his ears, and there is equally nothing he can say to Soonyoung about it. He wasn’t supposed to hear it. He could tell, just from the tone, the words. That was a thought for the stars to swallow up, and Wonwoo stole a piece of it for himself, and now he has to live with it.

Fortunately, he doesn’t see as much of Soonyoung as usual. In the past, he’s felt at times like Soonyoung was always away tracking bounties, but now he really feels like it. He goes days at a time without seeing him, and Soonyoung never mentions where he’s headed. He’ll hardly even take the tips Wonwoo gives him, says they’re chump change, that he can do better. It’s natural to worry, Wonwoo tells himself. It makes his chest feel a strange sort of hollow to watch Freddy wandering around the living room in search of a second pair of shoes to attack.

Cleaning is one way Wonwoo tries to get his mind off everything. The Jazzcat has been collecting dust in all its corners, and cat hair, too, ever since they got Freddy. He tries to start from the furthest room in the back and work his way forward, slowly clearing away the piles of gray that have built up over the years. He can’t remember the last time he cleaned so thoroughly, and he hasn’t missed it. The smell of age tickles him under the nose until tears squeeze out the corners of his eyes, and he’s tired of it before he’s even halfway done clearing out the first room. But he can’t quit that early. Leaves him too much thinking time.

By the time he’s made it through three rooms, his entire body aches. He trudges back to the living room half-covered in dust, retrieves a beer from the fridge, flips the television on, and sinks into the couch. Freddy rubs against his legs for only a moment before realizing how thick the layer of dust on them is and darting away to clean himself in a corner. Wonwoo eyes him absently. Space really isn’t the place for a cat. He needs somewhere to stretch out in a patch of sun, and there’s no sunlight here.

Wonwoo’s eyelids get heavy while he sits, audio from the television smearing and distorting until it sounds like nothing at all. In the midst of his doze, he almost doesn’t notice the ringing sound from his communicator. It’s only after a full minute he realizes what it is and rouses himself. Vision blurry with dust, he yawns and raises the speaker to his ear.

“Wonwoo speaking.”

“Open the bay.” It’s Soonyoung’s voice. Wonwoo is more awake in an instant. He’s inclined to be embarrassed about it, but something about the tone of Soonyoung’s words sets him too off-balance to pay that feeling much attention.

“Why?”

“Open it,” Soonyoung says. The line crackles. “I’m about to reach you.”

Wonwoo jolts from the sofa and scrambles to the control room. Sure enough, he can spot the tiny light blip of the Tigerclaw in the distance. He pulls the switch to open the entrance to the landing bay and listens to the groan of the door lifting while he watches the dot of Soonyoung’s ship grow larger by the second. The sound right now is eerily quiet, muffled under the layers of dust built up in Wonwoo’s ears.

Slowly, the outline of the Tigerclaw comes into view. Despite the amount of time he’s had it aboard and the number of times he’s fixed it, he’s not very familiar with the craft itself. Still, he can spot that there’s something wrong with it well before it’s reached the landing bay, and the scrape of metal as it screeches to a halt inside is nothing but confirmation. Wonwoo yanks the lever to close the bay and sprints the length of the ship to get there, Freddy close at his heels.

When he enters the bay, he first hears a strange labored sound that he realizes has to be Soonyoung’s breathing. He follows the jagged lines of black scraped into the steel floor until he gets to the Tigerclaw. As he expected, something’s not right. A lot of things. Though it’s still in essence a ship, a lot of parts of it are undeniably mangled: wings hanging on by a thread, windows splintered white with cracks, projectile launchers stunted and jammed. Gray smoke ekes out from its tail end, but Wonwoo has to stop inspecting it because Soonyoung heaves himself out of the cockpit and collapses face down on the floor.

“What the fuck?” Wonwoo whispers, then repeats, louder. “Are you okay?” His feet carry him to Soonyoung faster than he expected; in seconds, he’s squatting by Soonyoung’s side getting earfuls of ragged breathing.

“Obviously,” Soonyoung grunts, “I’m fine.” He lies there a few moments longer before rolling onto his back and squeezing his eyes shut. Small cuts and burns dot his face and down his neck. Wonwoo notices the worrying way he clutches at his lower abdomen. “Help me inside.”

“What happened?” Wonwoo asks.

“Help me inside,” Soonyoung repeats, and he extends one arm, as if to make way for Wonwoo to fit beneath it, to carry him inside. The deepest part of Wonwoo’s stomach clenches, and he takes the bait, threading himself under Soonyoung’s arm to lift him to his feet. As they take their first few steps, a few meows follow them. Soonyoung sighs, chin heavy against Wonwoo’s shoulder. “Freddy,” he mutters, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Soonyoung winces when Wonwoo dabs his wounds with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. As soon as he got Soonyoung laid in bed, he raided every cabinet he could think of for first aid supplies, but they don’t have many. He’s lucky they even had enough alcohol to sterilize the wounds, but they still need gauze or bandages, something to wrap them up. The Jazzcat’s self-piloting system is rigged to aim for the nearest satellite station, but they won’t be there for a little while. Wonwoo hopes Soonyoung can hold on.

He seems to be holding up alright enough, if only in that he’s not showing a very pained expression outwardly. Instead, his eyes droop closed, mouth in a tiny uncharacteristic frown while Wonwoo does his best to patch him up without any patches. Freddy walks in circles around the legs of the bed, then jumps up to sniff Soonyoung’s head, then jumps back to the floor.

“Your stomach,” Wonwoo says once he’s finished all the surface wounds running over Soonyoung’s face and down his neck. He nudges one of Soonyoung’s arms, both of which still hug close to his body. Soonyoung groans.

“What about it?”

“I need to see it.” He hears Soonyoung huff a breath out through his nose.

“Hitting on me at a time like this?”

Under normal circumstances, Wonwoo would be torn between laughing and crying, but he doesn’t have the heart for it right now. Ever since Soonyoung skidded back aboard the ship, he’s felt like he might puke or faint at any moment. He prods Soonyoung’s elbow again. “You’re injured,” he says. “I’m trying to help you. Show me your stomach.”

“I don’t need your help,” he says. “I’m fine. I just need to sleep.” He seems to be conveniently forgetting how Wonwoo just had to carry him inside.

“If you didn’t need my help,” Wonwoo says through gritted teeth, putting a little more force into his jabs at Soonyoung’s arm, “you should’ve just gone and died somewhere in the middle of space by yourself instead of coming back.”

The corner of Soonyoung’s mouth twitches. “Is that what you wanted me to do?”

“Just show me your stomach.”

After another few minutes of struggle, Soonyoung gives up and lets his arms fall to either side of him. Just as Wonwoo thought, the bottom half of his shirt is dyed a concerning red, and when he rolls it up to reveal the stomach beneath it, it’s not in good shape. There’s no way he can do much about this before they make it to that station, but he’ll have to try. He just hopes Soonyoung can hang on for that long.

Soonyoung groans when Wonwoo starts cleaning it up with the few remaining cotton balls. His breath hisses out softly, like the last press of air squeezing under the door before the bay closes, weak. Wonwoo tries to ignore it, but with every cotton ball he tosses into the trash bin, he feels more like his consciousness might slide right out of his body. He manages to clean Soonyoung’s stomach up a little, but it’s still a far cry from looking good.

“What happened?” he asks. Soonyoung’s eyelids flutter.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Wonwoo spits. “What were you doing?”

“Does it matter?” He gasps when Wonwoo presses the half-soaked cotton ball against his gut. “Fuck!”

“The hell it doesn’t matter,” Wonwoo grumbles, swabbing roughly while Soonyoung squirms. “You come back at death’s doorstep and I’m just supposed to not give a shit? Look at you.” He tosses the cotton ball and reaches for a new one, realizes when he does that there’s barely a handful left. Outside the window, the stars aren’t passing quick enough. “Look at the Tigerclaw. I have to fix both of you, and I want to know why.”

“You don’t have to fix anything,” Soonyoung says, breath catching when Wonwoo dabs at another part of his wound. No matter how much Wonwoo tries to clean it up, it never really starts looking much better. Soonyoung’s eyes stay closed, maybe to keep from having to see it, and he looks something like a gruesome doll, twisted and chewed up on the torso. If Wonwoo just stares at his face, ignores the scuffs, he could almost convince himself that he’s nothing but a life-size doll waiting to wake up. Then Soonyoung winces again, and he returns his focus to the stomach.

“I have to fix everything.”

“You just—”

“Stop talking,” Wonwoo says. “You’re gonna hurt yourself more. Just wait until we get to the station.”

The cotton balls have all long been used by the time they reach the station, clumped together in a messy bundle in the trash can. Wonwoo peruses the aisles until he finds gauze, then collects everything as quickly as he can to rush back to the ship. On the way out, he grabs a bag of beef jerky. It’s Soonyoung’s favorite.

When he returns to the ship, he is alarmed to find that Soonyoung is out of bed, Freddy curled up instead in the center of his mattress. Thankfully, there’s no blood trail leading him anywhere, but that somehow scares him more. Wonwoo’s first instinct is to sprint to the bay to see if Soonyoung’s flown off in the Tigerclaw, but of course he hasn’t. He couldn’t possibly. Until Wonwoo’s fixed it, there’s no way that ship is going anywhere.

As he’s retracing his steps through the halls, his ears pick up the telltale sound of water spray hitting tile, and he follows it to where Soonyoung must be, where he absolutely does not need to be right now. For a second, he hovers outside the door, but now is no time to be shy. He steels himself and shoves the door open. Just as he thought. Soonyoung never locks it.

“Huh?” Soonyoung is seated on the floor with his back against the wall, letting the stream fall around him, and he looks up when the door opens with half-lidded eyes. “Wonwoo?” Wonwoo feels dizzy for a lot of reasons. There’s a lot of red swirling around the drain. He tries not to look at Soonyoung at all, but it’s hard to avoid.

“Get up,” Wonwoo says. He sees Soonyoung’s arms, tight again around his waist, loosen to shield his body from sight. Unfortunately for both of them, Wonwoo can still see plenty.

“I’m showering.” If you could even call this showering. “Leave me alone. Give me a minute.”

“No way,” Wonwoo says, squatting to grab Soonyoung by the arms. Water soaks into the fabric of his clothes, boils him at the knees. “Get up.”

“I’m naked,” Soonyoung says. Like that changes anything. Wonwoo’s face colors, but he doesn’t feel like getting embarrassed about it.

“I noticed,” he says. “You’re also still bleeding. I got bandages, so you need to come with me so I can out them on you.”

“I’ll put them on myself,” Soonyoung groans. “Later.”

Wonwoo levels his gaze at Soonyoung, water peppering him on the head. “For the love of god.” Soonyoung looks back at him with glassy eyes and pink cheeks, hair flattened against his forehead. He looks like he’s just been through a round of the spin cycle. “Do you want to die?”

A good minute passes, and Soonyoung doesn’t say anything. He stares back at Wonwoo with eyes only half-seeing, still doesn’t move. The ends of Wonwoo’s pants are soaked through now, and his shirt is getting there. Steam fogs up his glasses until he can’t make out Soonyoung’s features anymore. He exhales.

“Fine. I don’t care,” he says, “but if you want to die, you have to do it somewhere else.” Then he heaves Soonyoung from the floor and turns off the faucet and tries to ignore the feeling of all of Soonyoung’s dead weight leaned up against his body.

It takes a week for Wonwoo to start making any sort of progress on fixing up the Tigerclaw. To begin with, most of the parts are so damaged he has to find complete replacements, so much of the time is spent scouring the solar system for them. They’re just lucky Soonyoung’s earned so much bounty hunting recently. Wonwoo wonders as he tinkers with the circuit boards in the control panel why exactly it is that they’ve been so suddenly wealthy. Maybe Freddy motivated Soonyoung to start being good at it. It bugs him that he doesn’t know.

While he’s realigning the underbelly of the craft, he hears a knock come from above, somewhere on the metal shell of the body. He scoots himself out and sees Soonyoung standing just beside him, wrapped in his coat like he’s about to go somewhere. He’s healed up well over the past few days—most of the scrapes on his face have faded into light pink shadows of scars—but he’s still in no condition to go anywhere. Layers of gauze wrapped around his lower abdomen peek out from below the hem of the jacket.

“How’s it going?” he asks, tapping his shoes on the floor, legs restless. “Is she ready?”

Wonwoo snorts. “She’s not ready to go anywhere,” he says, “and neither are you.” He sits up straight and leans against the side of the craft, pushing his goggles to his forehead. Soonyoung frowns at him. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

“I don’t see why it matters,” Soonyoung says, but the way his shoulders tense up suggests he does see why it matters. Wonwoo flattens his lips into a line.

“Because of all the work I’m having to do.” He gestures to the ship, to the sliver of bandage showing in the gap between Soonyoung’s coat and the lip of his pants. “You know why it matters. Don’t play dumb.” For a long minute, they stare at each other. When Wonwoo feels his resolve start to soften, he stiffens his jaw and says, “I’m not going to finish fixing this ship until you tell me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very.” To show it, he removes his goggles completely, then opens his case and stuffs all his tools back in. They jingle when he gets up, soft clashing metal sounds. His legs buzz with pins and needles. “Take as long as you want. No skin off my nose.” He hefts the tool box and starts toward the entry door.

“Why is it so important to you?” Soonyoung calls, and Wonwoo turns around to look at him. He stands with his arms crossed, shoulders hunched up, the closest he can get to a porcupine deploying its needles. His gaze still has that same hazy look as it had when Wonwoo pulled him out of the shower. As soon as Wonwoo thinks of it, he whips around to hide the color in his face.

“We’re partners,” he says, throat thick. “Why the hell do you think it’s important to me?”

When he stomps inside, he doesn’t hear any footsteps coming behind him, and it only halfway relieves him. Most of him expects Soonyoung to try revving up the engine and leaving anyway, though he knows it’s not possible. And he knows Soonyoung would die if he did leave, but he doesn’t know why he seems so eager to go. Maybe to get back on the bounty hunting trail, but he’s never been so gung ho about it before.

Wonwoo hasn’t known him to be very restless. He has plenty of energy, but in the past, it’s only been enough to drive him to pace in circles around the living room after he’s missed out on a big bounty or smoke in the storage docks. The Jazzcat is big enough that you can usually find somewhere that makes you feel like you aren’t trapped on it. For Wonwoo, it’s starting to seem smaller, but he still manages to get by without going stir crazy.

Maybe they’ve just run their course as partners. It makes sense that Soonyoung’s never spoken about himself if he’s always been planning to bounce when the fields lost their green. Wonwoo’s gotten so used to having him around that he can hardly imagine himself living on the ship alone like he did before. But Freddy is here now, he guesses, to keep him company. Every time he looks at Freddy, he’ll think about Soonyoung. Wonwoo sighs, flops on the couch, closes his eyes. He needs to slow down.

Two small dots of pressure land on his thigh, then two more, and then a bundle of warmth curls up in his lap. It’s been weird ever since they got Freddy. Not that it’s the cat’s fault—how could it be?—but something is definitely different in the balance of the ship, and it has to have something to do with Soonyoung. It can’t be Wonwoo; he’s been the same as ever. Just like he always is.

“Oh, Freddy,” Wonwoo mutters, stroking the cat’s back, “what’s wrong with him?” The low sound of purring rises to meet his ears. Wonwoo exhales. “He’s been taking risky jobs, I bet. Trying to get himself killed.” He nudges the back of one of Freddy’s ears with his knuckle, laughs just a little. “It’s not that bad on the ship, is it?”

With a small noise, Freddy jumps from Wonwoo’s legs to the floor. Wonwoo opens his eyes just in time to see him walk around the corner into the hallway. “Well, maybe for you it’s that bad.” After another second sitting still, his stomach growls, and he heads to the kitchen.

It’s still such a new thing to actually have the means to prepare a decent meal aboard the ship, and Wonwoo’s nowhere close to used to it yet. He opens the fridge, closes it, opens it again at least a hundred times, trying to prove that the food stocked on the shelves isn’t just an elaborate illusion. After a few laps around the kitchen island, he settles on making some simple eggs. It feels like a waste with all these ingredients on hand, but he can’t be bothered to spend the time on something more complex. The sound of the pan touching the burner on the stove echoes through the ship. Wonwoo closes his eyes and listens to the butter sizzle as it melts.

Soonyoung is sitting on the couch when he comes back to the living room, cigarette dangling from his lips. He has his feet kicked up on the table, back leaned all the way into the cushions, but there’s nothing on the projector. His eyes slide with Wonwoo as he walks. “Smells good,” he says.

“No smoking in the living room,” Wonwoo tells him. He watches until Soonyoung’s snubbed it out in the overfull ash tray.

“Make any for me?”

Wonwoo snorts and takes a bite. A little too bland. “Make some for yourself.”

“But I’m injured.”

“Are you injured, or are you fine?” The sound of the fork scraping the plate makes Wonwoo’s stomach churn. “Make up your mind.”

“Both,” Soonyoung says. There’s something suspicious in the way he looks at Wonwoo, like he’s daring him to say something. Wonwoo doesn’t want to take the bait, but it’s hard to avoid when he can’t tell what words Soonyoung is trying to draw out of him.

“Are you tired of living here?” he asks. He almost adds _with me_ , but even thinking it feels too vulnerable already. Soonyoung blinks.

“Tired?”

“If you want to disappear, then just do it,” Wonwoo says, swallowing another rubbery mouthful of eggs. “You don’t have to kill yourself. I won’t look for you.”

“So if I just left one day,” Soonyoung says, “you wouldn’t try to find me?”

Wonwoo looks at him sideways. The air in this room is too stiff. “Depends on the circumstances.” Soonyoung’s eyes on him are hard to meet. “But probably not.” For a long while, they stare at each other. Soonyoung huffs.

“And here I thought you got lonely without me.”

“I lived without you for a long time before,” Wonwoo says with an eye roll. “I can do it again.”

“Do you want to?”

Now Wonwoo’s hand stills, fork halfway to his mouth with another bite. He sits up straighter and sets his plate down on the table, a few feet away from where Soonyoung’s heels rest. There’s a muted shuffling sound as Freddy wanders in from the hallway, then nothing as he stops completely and stares first at Wonwoo, then at Soonyoung, as if he has the capacity to understand whether anything is happening in this room right now. His too-short tail swishes idly back and forth a few beats before he flattens himself to the ground and stretches out, eyes squeezing shut in a cattishly oblivious yawn.

“I’m the one who’s asking you questions right now,” Wonwoo says, shoulders tense. Soonyoung keeps up the same posture, fingers laced behind his head nonchalantly, but something very small changes about him. Even Wonwoo can’t tell what it is, but beneath his senses, he can pick up on it. It’s like the edges of everything around him have sharpened by ten percent or something. Nearly imperceptible, but unsettling in a way he can’t pinpoint. “What have you been doing lately?”

“Lately?” Soonyoung hums. He’s trying to sound cool, but Wonwoo can tell it’s trying. That position of sitting must be hurting him, but he’s too stubborn to give it up. “I thought this was just about what happened last time.”

“It is,” Wonwoo tells him, “but I have a feeling it’s connected. Call it a hunch.”

“A hunch, huh?” The ship shudders as they pass through a stargate. “Got any other hunches?”

“A few. I’ve got a hunch that you’re taking riskier bounties. You’ve made an awful lot of money lately.” He watches Soonyoung’s face to try to gauge his reaction, but there’s not enough change to tell. “And I have a hunch that the latest one of those bounties found you before you found him and gave you a hard time.” Silence falls around them, and Soonyoung still only looks back, face unchanging. “So? Am I close?”

Soonyoung blows out a breath, then gives up his nonchalant pose to lower his feet to the floor and slouch forward. Immediately, he seems so much smaller. “Right on the money,” Soonyoung says, quiet. “I knew you were too smart to need me to tell you.” That makes Wonwoo angry. He doesn’t know why, but everything is a shade of red.

“So tell me something else,” he says. “Tell me why you wouldn’t just fucking say it.” In the corner of his vision, he sees Freddy roll to his feet and walk out of the room. Wonwoo would also like to walk out of the room, but unfortunately, he has to be here and apparently do all the talking. “Or why you’re taking dangerous jobs. Or god damn anything.”

“Just guess,” Soonyoung says, shrugging. “I’m sure you can.”

Wonwoo rakes his hands through his hair, then slams his palms on the table. “I don’t want to fucking guess.” His hands sting, but he keeps them where they are, pressed firm into the tabletop. “I want to know. I just don’t get it.” His mind races to catch up to what he wants to say, but his mouth blazes ahead regardless. “Are you afraid of something? You think something bad is gonna happen if I know anything about you? Fucking Christ, Soonyoung, I’m just asking you to meet me in the middle.”

“Oh, because I know so much about you,” Soonyoung snaps. Now Wonwoo is angrier. What the hell does Soonyoung have to be mad about? It’s not like Wonwoo’s been risking his life and then pretending nothing happened. “Don’t try to say anything about me.”

“If there’s something you want to know,” Wonwoo grunts, “just say it. I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.” He realizes that he’s standing, but he doesn’t remember when he got up. “I was born on Ganymede. I used to be in the planetary defense force. My parents split when I was in grade school. The Jazzcat was a gift from my uncle when he died.” He throws his arms out to his sides. “What the fuck else do you want to know? I’ll say anything. I have said anything. I’m not trying to hide.”

Soonyoung stands up too fast, and his face twists for just a second in pain. “There’s nothing to tell,” he says, but the way he says it makes it seem like it wasn’t what he meant to say at all, like his tongue decided on it just as it left his mouth. He doesn’t take it back.

“Bullshit is there nothing to tell,” Wonwoo says. He walks to Soonyoung and jabs a finger into his chest. “What the fuck is your problem? How many years have we known each other now, and you’re still keeping up this tight-ass clamshell to keep me out.”

“Why do you want to get in?” Soonyoung asks. Wonwoo nearly chokes.

“Do I need to have a reason?” he asks. “We’re partners, aren’t we? We give a shit about each other.” His voice drops gradually to a whisper. He hears it almost from outside himself, almost completely soundless. “I give a shit about you, at least.” For another few seconds, they stare at each other, eyes just inches apart, then Soonyoung pushes Wonwoo’s hand off him.

“Fine,” he says. “Let’s go to Mars. I’ll talk.”

As always, it’s freezing on Mars. Wonwoo shoves his hands deep in his pockets and buries his nose deeper in the thick scarf around his neck. The crunch of Soonyoung’s shoes on red dirt sounds lightyears away, but he’s just a yard or so ahead, leaving a trail of shallow footprints for Wonwoo to follow in. The ground here is redder than Wonwoo realized it could be, redder than he remembered, and he guesses there are still plenty of things he doesn’t get about Mars.

They were silent in the ship on the rest of the trip to Mars, and they’re silent again now but for the sound of footsteps carrying on the air around them. Usually when they’re here, they’re in one of the more metropolitan areas, weaving through thick street crowds under archways of neon, but this time, Soonyoung’s brought them somewhere different. Wonwoo’s never been to this part of Mars. It’s certainly more on the outskirts of most of the planet’s civilization, and it’s clearest in the weight of the silence on Wonwoo’s shoulders. The soil here is so blindingly red even in the dark. All that links it to the Mars he knows is a sparse line of light posts connecting back to the city with a long-outdated telecommunication wire.

He wants to ask where they’re going, but he feels like if he does, Soonyoung will never finish taking them there. He’ll turn around and look Wonwoo in the eyes, then start back in the direction of the ship without ever saying anything, track red dirt all over the inside for Wonwoo to clean up, and when he has cleaned it up, that’ll be the end of the story. Maybe he would leave then, too. Big risk. Wonwoo keeps his mouth shut.

After a while of walking, they finally reach an area that is home to things, or at least seems like it once was. There are buildings, but they all look years empty, atmospheric corrosion wearing at the corners of the windows, holes worn into the seams of the walls. More than buildings, too; there are blocked-off lots, half-fallen fences, remnants of what must have been sidewalks now spiderwebbed with cracks and covered in weeds. Soonyoung brings them to an abrupt halt, but Wonwoo almost senses it coming. His feet are still before Soonyoung’s.

The building before them is small, but holds the air of one that wishes to be large, even in its desolation. Judging by the way dim light drifts through the windows, Wonwoo can tell the roof has collapsed. Ugly brown vines stretch over every surface they can reach, leaves threaten to black out every visible trace of the building’s stone exterior. For a long while, Soonyoung stands beside Wonwoo and stares at the building, breath fogging almost invisibly around them.

“Do you know where we are?” Soonyoung asks. His voice is so distant. Must be this Martian air.

“How could I?”

“You’re smart.” Soonyoung smiles. It looks halfway genuine. “And good at guessing.”

“I don’t feel like guessing,” Wonwoo says. He listens to Soonyoung exhale.

“Maybe you don’t.” He pushes dirt into a little pile with the back of his heel, then steps on it firmly to flatten it to the ground again. “I was raised here.” He gestures with one arm to a stumpy metal rod sticking out of the ground that might have once been a signpost. “I never met my parents. My grandma passed when I was a toddler, so I lived here.”

“Oh.” Wonwoo barely hears his own voice. His lips are starting to go numb. “How was it?” Maybe that’s a stupid question, but Soonyoung doesn’t laugh.

“It was fine,” he says. “I didn’t really know any better. There were a bunch of us. We got into all kinds of trouble.”

Wonwoo hums. “Did Junhui live here, too?”

“Junhui?” Soonyoung coughs a little, and his hand flits to his stomach on reflex. Wonwoo wishes he could stop it, but he doesn’t know why. “No, he had his mom. But he and I… well, we still got into trouble. Probably more than everybody else.” Stars wink in the black distance of the sky, and Soonyoung shoots Wonwoo a sideways grin. “Does that surprise you?”

“A little. Junhui seems pretty straight-laced.”

Now Soonyoung does laugh. “He is now,” he says. “Junhui really got himself in order when he moved out to the city. He always told me I could come work at the bar if I needed something steady.”

“Did you?”

“No.” Soonyoung snorts. “I don’t think I ever grew out of troublemaking the way he wanted me to.”

“I’ll say.”

At the sound of shifting soil, Wonwoo turns to see Soonyoung facing him instead of the building. Starlight twinkles in his eyes, and so does the reflection of Mars’ twin moons. He looks softened around the edges, like he might blend into the evening and disappear before Wonwoo has the chance to reach out and grab him. His hands are too cold to try it, anyway.

“Alright then, Wonwoo.” Wonwoo still isn’t used to the way Soonyoung says his name even now. His neck heats up. “Did you hear everything you wanted?”

Wonwoo could scream no. There’s so much more he’d like to know, so many details he wants to scrub to the very pit of, but now isn’t the time to ask. But still. “No,” he says. Soonyoung cocks an eyebrow. “You still haven’t told me why you’ve been taking risky bounties.”

Soonyoung sighs. “Maybe I was hoping you’d forget about it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Listen, Wonwoo.” Soonyoung takes a step closer. Wonwoo isn’t as cold anymore. “I’ve spent a lot of time on my own. Even before I was bounty hunting, after everyone else left this place, it was just me.” Another small step. “I’m tired of being alone and being nowhere. I like it on the Jazzcat.” His eyes hold Wonwoo in a headlock, make his breaths come short. “With you.”

“So,” Wonwoo chokes, “what are you trying to say?”

“That I don’t want you to kick me out.”

“You think the amount of money you earn has anything to do with it?” Wonwoo scoffs. He wiggles his fingers to get a little feeling back into them. Maybe also to distract himself from the way every inch of his skin is abuzz with nerves. “After you spent how many years earning nothing?” Soonyoung just blinks. “I’m not kicking you out. I would’ve done it already.”

“But Freddy—”

“I like him.” The puff of Wonwoo’s own breath fogs his glasses. “He’s good company when you’re gone.”

Soonyoung cracks a grin. “So you do miss me,” he says, “when I’m away.”

Wonwoo hesitates a moment, then takes his hands out of his pockets and grabs Soonyoung by the collar, pulls their faces together. The night air is freezing on his knuckles, and he can’t feel anything anywhere except his face. It feels so much longer than it must actually last, Mars turning thousands of revolutions before Wonwoo’s fingers unclench from the fabric of Soonyoung’s coat and flee back to the safety of his pockets. At the very least, Soonyoung is a dazzling Martian red, which is a sort of consolation. He grins, and a thin laugh sifts through his teeth.

“You do like me,” he says, smug yet not, brimming with warmth despite the chill. “I knew it.”

“Yeah, well,” Wonwoo huffs, “maybe I’m not very subtle.”

“I knew it was good that I found Freddy,” Soonyoung hums, turning on his heel in the direction their faded footprints lead. “He’s special.”

Dirt crunches under their heels with every footstep, hushed by the shivering navy of the evening. On the horizon, the two moons of Mars mingle just close enough to each other that they seem like they might touch. Bit by bit, the sensation in Wonwoo’s hands starts to trickle black in, like droplets of ice melting one at a time.

Freddy walks in circles around the living room like always, hopping on Soonyoung’s knees and Wonwoo’s shoulders before eventually deciding to stretch out beneath the table and fall asleep. Wonwoo still regrets that he has no warm patch to curl up in like cats who live on planets, but he’s learning to live with it. When he feels Freddy purring beneath his hand after he feeds him, he figures it could be a lot worse.

Wonwoo heads to sleep first, but even in spite of the fatigue sweeping through him, he can’t shake the jittery restlessness hanging around in his chest. Quietly, he creeps from his bed toward the hall, but just before he opens the door, he stills. Something tells him to stay there, breath held, hand poised at the handle. In the distance, on the other side of doors and walls and space and time, he hears a small meow.

“You’re a good cat, Freddy. You know that?” Soonyoung’s voice is no more than a murmur. “I knew Wonwoo would like you.” There is a stretch of empty space before he speaks again. “We don’t have to be alone anymore.” Wonwoo is hanging onto each word like an infant grips its mother’s finger. “None of us.”

After another moment of silence, Wonwoo returns to bed. As he lies there, eyes closed but nowhere close to sleeping, he listens to the sounds coming down the hall. Muted and subtle, a million miles away. Two pairs of footsteps, one cat and one human, approaching softly in tandem.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!!! i had a lot of fun writing this, and i hope you had half as much reading. i watched cowboy bebop recently and was heavily inspired to write an au like this (tho it's not really the case that u can swap these 2 out exactly for jet or spike, so they're still a little different, just with a similar setting). and thank you SO MUCH to my lovely artist min [@nebulawonu on twitter] for making the lovely companion art you saw in the middle!!! it was my greatest pleasure to work with you on this and thanks so much for the beautiful piece. happy 1517 everybody!!


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